Island Flying in the Bahamas

There are some 700 islands in the Bahamas.  During the 1970’s, drug runners built runways on many of the ‘out islands’ to help with their drug running businesses.  The drug runners are largely gone now, but most of their runways remain.  And on many out islands, small scuba diving resorts have sprung up next to the old (but now often improved) runways, offering a unique fly/dive opportunity for GA pilots, complete with authentic laid-back island culture.  And unlike the vibe often found in Nassau and Freeport, the locals on the out islands actually like you, and truly appreciate your patronage.  

It’s true that nothing makes airplane engines sound worse than flying over open water, but once you make peace with this fact, low-level inter-island flying is simply to die for—literally in some cases!  But for me personally, flying the out islands of the Bahamas in my Cessna T337 accounts for a lot of my best flying memories.  And in addition to the incredible flying, the scuba diving is world class with high visibility, abundant coral reefs and sharks, and even some deep water pelagic fish.  

Unlike flying on big, pressurized commercial airliners with 8000′ MSL cabins, where you must wait 12 to 24 hours after diving before flying, a small unpressurized GA aircraft allows you to make morning dives at one island, fly to another island for lunch, then on to a third island for afternoon dives.  This is because all the flying is done at just a few hundred feet MSL in an unpressurized cabin, so there’s no concern for decompression sickness.  It’s a win-win!

My most frequent stops in the Bahamas were: Cat Island, Harbor Island, Andros Island, Long Island and Crooked Island.  One of my favorites was Hawk’s Nest on Cat Island—back when it was just a cheap 10-room fly-in motel/dive shop.  But looking at their current website, I no longer see a dive shop.  If true, that’s sad because the diving there was great.  Harbor Island is famous for its pink sand beech, and for not allowing vehicles (golf carts only!).  And on Long Island, I typically stayed at Stella Maris Resort, who had their own airport, and where my son earned his PADI Open Ocean diving Cert.  

Below are a few flying photos from my fly/dive days.  You can Click on any photo to launch a slideshow starting at that point.  If interested, you can see more of my island photos, here; and some of my underwater diving photos, here.  

If you have any questions or problems, or if you just want to chat about fly/diving the out islands, just Contact Me.